


Sans-Rehab

by darktreesbigvoices



Series: Winterscape [1]
Category: Soundgarden (Band)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:08:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24047182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darktreesbigvoices/pseuds/darktreesbigvoices
Summary: Chris visits the ol' gang after rehab and reconnects.
Series: Winterscape [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1734673
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	Sans-Rehab

**Author's Note:**

> This is obviously non-canon. What can I say, I like my aesthetics. Also Hemingway. And beige prose.

Kim had opened the front door and said with a smile, “Look at you, all sans-rehab. I’m proud of you, man.” Ben, with a fleck of stubble on his jaw and his hair flopping over his eyes, had clapped him on the shoulder, and Matt shook his hand from where he was sprawled on the couch, both of them not talking about how skinny they both were.

\----

That night the phone rang downstairs, and he stumbled down three flights of stairs and a creaking hallway to the kitchen land line. It was his dad. Chris held his freezing toes in one hand and clutched the phone in the other, his teeth gritted. He jerked out words. The old man on the other line talked to him as if he had never hit or yelled at him, or his brothers and sisters.  
Footsteps on the stairs. Matt, with his jutting ribs, staring sleepily at him in the darkness.  
“Ok?” He asked, as if he knew who Chris had been talking to.  
“Fine.”  
“Your damn family, huh?” Matt asked, throwing his arm limply around Chris’s shoulders as they walked back up the stairs.  
“My dad.” Chris grunted. He ruffled Matt’s hair.  
“You want a cigarette?”  
“I quit.”  
“Oh.” Matt leaned against the wall. He looked gutted, tired in a way that Chris was used to feeling. He creaked his neck and yawned into his fist. “Was rehab hell? For you?”  
“A bit.”  
“Remember,” Matt chuckled, (they were both speaking in whispers across the hall) “remember that gig we did in Spokane?”  
“With the pool table?”  
“Yeah. And that skin-head came up and tried to fuck us up, and you hit him so hard he fell over? That’s…that’s what I think about when I think of you, y’know? You shoving that guy. Not in a bad way. It’s just—you’re strong. And I knew that rehab would be hell, but I knew you’d be ok.”  
“In the end, yeah. You don’t have to worry about me.”  
“Alright.”  
“Go to sleep, Matt.”  
“Fine. I’m sorry about your family.”  
“It’s ok.”

\----

The pine forest and the lake were cloaked in fog. There was no snow, and it was almost warm, despite it being near Christmas. Ben shot a few baskets and played a game with him in the gathering morning, both of them out of practice and lazily trying to beat each other. After Ben had won two games, and Chris three, they walked slowly back to the house.  
“Kim sure spent a lot of money on this place.” Ben commented, squinted up at the third story, craning his neck.  
“He deserves it.”  
Ben tossed the ball morosely up into the air and caught it. He pushed the hair out of his eyes and looked frankly at Chris. “It changed you.”  
“Kim’s house?” Chris asked, knowing he was wrong and not wanting to talk, not wanted to be right.  
“Rehab.” Ben answered.  
“Sure, that’s what it’s supposed to do. It’s like going back to school.”  
“I’d like to try it.”  
“You’d have to get addicted to something first.”  
“Yeah. Or I could talk my way in and just chill.”  
“You’re the only person I know who would want to ‘chill’ in a rehab center.” Chris laughed.  
Ben opened the door for him and stood by the heater, tugging off his boots.

\----

“The gang’s all here.” Kim said satisfiedly.  
“We should have called Hiro.” Chris mumbled into his cider. Kim chuckled. “He wouldn’t come. He’s probably still mad at you.”  
“You think he could hold a grudge for that long?”  
“Sure.” Kim paused and poked the fire. He cleared his throat, “How’s your kid?”  
“Little Lillian? I don’t see her. Susan’s got custody, me being an ‘unfit parent’ and everything. I guess I was for a while. I should give her to you, you’d do great being a dad.”  
"I dunno." Kim stoked his beard, his way of blushing, “I smoke too much.”  
Chris scoffed, “Better then drinking.”  
“Which is better then being a shit-head.”  
“Your parents aren’t shit-heads, they’re good.”  
“But yours are.”  
“Because they drank.”  
“Ah, yeah. Guess that would help.”  
Chris slumped down in his chair, closed his eyes. “I’m too fucked up to be a dad, man.”  
“Ditto.”  
“We should all just fuck off to some forest and live in a camp.”  
“A big Fucked Up Rock-Star camp?”  
“Sounds about right.”  
Kim patted Chris reassuringly on the shoulder. “We’re gonna be ok.”  
Chris blushed and ducked his head, “Yeah. You with your big house.”  
“Hey, man. You’ll find love. How can you not, with your good looks?”  
“Stop.”  
“Your charm,”  
“Kim.”  
“Those teeth.”  
“Shut up.” Chris kicked him playfully. “Everyone’s hounding me about rehab and about how I’m gonna be fine. I know I’m gonna be fine. It’s just I worry too much.”  
“You think I don't?”  
"No, no. It's just different worrying."  
"God, man." Kim finished off his drink. The ice clinked in the bottom of the glass. "I'm glad you're back."


End file.
